Blog Tours, Book Blasts, Review Copies – Ask Me Anything

I get asked the same questions over and over so I thought I’d put up a quick post answering a few questions about blog tours & book blasts. And then share my 2 cents about review copies.

What is the difference between a Book Blast & a Blog Tour?

Book BlastA Book Blast is designed to get a book in front of lots of people. A book spotlight, author information and social media links gets posted on multiple blogs on the same day. Included is an amazon gift card giveaway that encourages people to add the book to their goodreads shelf, follow the author on twitter, like the author’s facebook fan page, etc. The goal of a book blast is to gain exposure for the author’s book.As a blogger you can participate in the blast by putting up a post on the specified day. In exchange for doing so you can have either your twitter or facebook fan page place on the rafflecopter form to help build your own social media following. I provide you with everything you need for the post so it can be as simple as copying and pasting the HTML code into a new blog post and hitting publish.

Blog TourA Blog Tour consists of book reviews, author interview, guest posts, tens lists, excerpts, etc. The length of the tour depends on how big the tour is but generally they run from 1 week to a full month. The author provides ebook copies for review, writes original guest posts specifically for your blog, answers your interview questions, etc.As a blogger taking part in a tour gives you new content for your blog (an author interview, excerpt, tens list or guest post) &/or provides you with a free ebook in exchange for a review. You choose a date you are available to put a post up.

If you are a serious book blogger it is time to purchase a Kindle, Nook or other ereader. I’m amazed at how things have changed in the past 2.5 years. I’m actually surprised that publishers and authors are still footing the bill to print and ship ARCs & review copies. It is no longer necessary and I honestly don’t think it is a practice that will be around much longer.

I have a Nook, I have a Kindle, I have an iPad, I have an Android… I’ve tried them all and personally I recommend you go with a Kindle or something Amazon compatible. There are several reasons for this. Amazon offers tons of free new ebooks everyday and many ebooks are currently only available on Amazon. If you are going to use Netgalley to request review copies Kindle is definitely the way to go. As a netgalley user you agree to delete the ebook once you are done reading it. Something I do once I have finished reading the book; however, I can’t tell you have many times my review copies have expired before I am through reading them… so frustrating! If you download a Galley to use on the Nook or Adobe Reader it expires after 55 days. This is not an issue if you send the ebook to a Kindle. Obviously this is just my opinion but my budget priced $69 Kindle is the best purchase I’ve made. Even my daughter who insisted we get her a Nook (that’s what all her friend had) now wishes she had listened to me and gone with a Kindle.